Suspicions, Subterfuge and Surprises
by TigerLily888
Summary: Hotch is acting strangely and Emily suspects the worst. H/P established relationship. Three shot.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a little fic I dreamt up. I'm sorry, it's not up to my usual standards, but my muse made it go completely differently than what I originally planned!**

**Thanks saturdayslump for betaing.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters and no infringement is intended.**

"Well, well, well. Look who just walked into the BAU!" Morgan grinned, getting out of his chair. "Hello, Mrs. Hotchner." He bent down and kissed Emily on the cheek.

"Aw, you're so sweet. Walking generally conjures up an image of gracefulness, which is something I'm pretty damn sure I don't possess at the moment. "Waddled" would have been the more appropriate word," Emily flashed him a chagrined smile as she patted her gigantically rounded stomach. The baby was due in two weeks and she thought she looked like she had swallowed a basketball... or, more likely, a beach ball.

Morgan bent down to her stomach. "Hey, Little Miss H! I hope you're not going to get your daddy's frown; you don't want to scare the boys away now, do you? 'Cos then Uncle Morgan won't be able to have any fun at your daddy's expense when you start dating."

He laughed when Emily slapped him lightly on the back of his head. "You are hopeless," she declared, rolling her eyes.

"Emily!"

She looked up, a wide smile on her face when she saw Reid. "Hey, Reid."

Reid bent down and gave her a hug. "How are you both?"

"Besides the swollen ankles, incredibly sore back, constant indigestion, the driving need to visit the bathroom every seven minutes and feeling so hungry that I could eat a horse at precisely 2 am every morning, I'm great." Despite her litany of complaints, Emily had a broad smile on her face. She and Hotch had wanted this baby so very badly, and she would have done anything, endured everything, to be able to have her.

"What, no increased libido?" teased Morgan. "Poor Hotch. No wonder he's been looking like thunder the last two months. Poor man needs to get some action, Prentiss, or his eyes might start wandering."

She gave him a death glare. "Oh, you're so funny, Morgan. _Not._ Besides," she shrugged, "who says your Unit Chief isn't getting any action? Not of the missionary kind, but there are other ways, you know. Use your imagination." She winked at Morgan, laughing aloud when she saw that he was temporarily rendered speechless by her comment.

"Use his imagination for what?" sounded a familiar baritone behind her. "Hi, sweetheart," Hotch smiled, bending down to kiss her cheek.

"Hi, honey. Oh, Morgan was just saying that you mustn't be getting any action, but I disabused him of that thought and said he should use his imagination on what a pregnant woman and her husband can get up to."

She looked on in amusement as she watched the smile on her husband's face freeze for the briefest of moments. She had to give him credit though. He recovered quickly, shaking his head in resignation. "I was wondering why Reid's ears were red. I hope that was due to embarrassment and not the result of picturing us in the bedroom, Reid." He turned his laser-like gaze on his subordinate.

"Uh...oh...n..no, sir, absolutely not! I mean, yes, it's because of embarrassment. I completely did not picture you and Emily at all, sir, I swear." He stopped short when Emily burst out laughing.

"Calm down, Reid. Hotch was joking."

"Oh." Reid looked relieved.

Emily smiled at Hotch. "Good one, honey. So I was wondering if you were free to have lunch with me today?"

He checked his watch. "Sorry sweetheart. I've got a meeting in half an hour."

"Oh, okay," she said, disappointed. "Will you be long? Maybe I can wait." She was bored to death after only being home for a week. In that time, she had already cleaned the house from top to bottom and rearranged all the cupboards with the exception of Hotch's office. You interfered with his filing system at your peril.

"Uh, no. The meeting's at the...field office, so it'll take a while for me to get back."

Emily looked at him suspiciously. She hadn't missed the slight hesitation just before he said field office. But he was looking straight at her, so he couldn't have been lying... right? "Well, maybe next time."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said bending down to kiss her cheek, "I would have really liked to have lunch with you." He looked genuinely disappointed and her suspicions faded. Although not completely. Something was not quite right, she could feel it. "I promise I won't be late getting home tonight. Maybe we can rent a dvd to watch?"

"Sure."

"I have to run. I'll call you later, all right?"

She nodded. "See you later."

Emily watched as Hotch walked out the glass doors to the elevator, then came to a decision. "Reid, have you got anything urgent on right now?"

Reid looked surprised. "Uh no... why?"

"Come on, you're coming with me." She took his hand and started to follow Hotch, pulling Reid along with her.

"What? But where are we going?"

"Something's not right. Hotch is hiding something from me. I can feel it."

"Oh, no, Emily, I'm sure he's not. Really."

Morgan appeared next to them. "Hey guys, what's happening? Where are you going?"

The elevator arrived and Emily stepped in, dragging Reid in when he hesitated. "Come on! We're going to lose him."

"Lose who?" Morgan asked, looking intrigued. He quickly joined them in the elevator.

"Emily thinks Hotch is hiding something from her," muttered Reid, looking disgruntled as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

"No way, princess. Hotch would never do the dirty on you."

She narrowed her eyes at Morgan in displeasure. "Thanks for that Morgan, I was trying really hard to keep that thought out of my head until right now."

"Sorry, but you know it's true."

"Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough." The elevator doors opened and she strode determinedly to her SUV. She looked back to see Morgan and Reid staring after her. "Are you guys coming?"

They looked at each other and hurried after her. "We're only coming to keep you out of trouble," called out Morgan.

"In that case, how about you drive." Emily tossed him the car keys.

"Bossy much?" muttered Morgan as they all got in.

"Look, there's Aaron, step on it."

Morgan accelerated smoothly and managed to just get through the boomgate before it fell, saving them a few seconds.

"Don't let him see you and don't lose him, Morgan, or I'm going to have your balls."

"Damn, Emily, if this is how you act in public, I don't even want to know what you do to your man at home." Morgan slowed down to let a car cut in, so that there were now three cars between them and Hotch's SUV.

"You know, I used to think I was feeling pissed off because I had PMS, but then I realised no, actually, I'm just a bitch all the time. PMS has nothing to do with it." Emily suppressed a smile at Reid's startled look in her rearview mirror. "This is nothing, though. Wait till you see me riled up with all these pregnancy hormones running amuck through my body."

"I'm sure Hotch is just heading to his meeting, like he told you," offered Reid, obviously trying to calm her.

"Oh yeah?" Emily felt her heart drop. "Then why is he taking a turn out into the suburbs?"

"Um, Morgan, you left your gun behind, right?" said Reid nervously.

**I'll post the next chapter really soon, while I work on my next chapter for my Email fic. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posting, been travelling around and hadn't had the chance to connect to a wi-fi service. Here's the next chapter.  
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Emily gasped. Hotch had just pulled up in front of a magnificent looking house in an established suburb. The enormous home was like something you would see in Home and Garden magazine. The lawns were immaculately kept and the house, with its cream coloured exterior and dark blue front door and trim, looked homey and inviting.

Morgan and Reid looked over at her anxiously. Shit, thought Morgan, she better not be in labour because Hotch would kill them for sure. He should have stopped her before she left Quantico. Morgan rolled his eyes inwardly. Who was he kidding? As if anyone could stop Emily when she had her heart set on something. Not even Hotch could do it, and Emily was wholly, completely, head over heels in love with him.

"Emily, are you all right?"

She ignored his question. "Who is that woman?" she bit out, nodding in her husband's direction. Morgan looked out of the right hand side window. They were parked a couple of hundred yards away and none of them had binoculars. All he could see was a red-haired woman opening the door. _Oh, shit_. Morgan winced at what happened next.

"What the hell! Did my husband just hug a redhead he lied to me about meeting?" _Shit, shit shit_, thought Morgan again. She looked unbelievably pissed. It was never a good sign when Emily started picking at her nails, which she had started doing as soon as she'd spotted the unknown redhead.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation, Emily." Reid again, trying to be the voice of reason.

"Oh, really? Like what, Reid?" Emily's voice was cool. Completely calm. Another very bad sign.

"Uh, maybe he's interviewing a witness?" Reid's voice quivered with nerves.

"Idiot," Morgan muttered under his breath. "He's probably just visiting a friend, princess, nothing more."

"We'll see."

They sat in silence for the next 20 minutes. A very uncomfortable silence. Hotch and the woman finally emerged. Hotch looked much more relaxed and had a smile on his face. Bending down, he kissed the woman on the cheek. He turned and started to walk away, then appeared to change his mind. He came back and gave the redhead an enthusiastic hug, grinning widely after letting her go. Morgan hadn't seen his supervisor that animated in months. He closed his eyes briefly in despair. _Great going, boss, that's not suspicious at all_. And since when had Hotch been into redheads?

"I am going to kill him. Tonight. No, that's too good for him. I'm going to do a Lorena Bobbit after carving my name in his chest. My full name." Emily's eyes were narrow as she stared at her seemingly unfaithful husband getting back into his SUV.

"Emily," warned Morgan, "you don't mean that."

"Oh yeah? Pregnancy hormones, remember?"

"Reid, please tell me Prentiss is joking about the hormones thing." _Please._

Reid swallowed. "I'm afraid she isn't. There have been studies demonstrating that the hormones produced during pregnancy cause a small percentage of women to be overly aggressive and angry. One woman said that everyone pissed her off and she constantly felt like punching someone..." He stopped short when he saw the look on Morgan's face. "Um, well, you get the picture."

"Let's think about this, Emily. You know very well that Hotch would never dream about being unfaithful. So, how about we go talk to Hotch, ask him what's going on?"

She shook her head. "No. No talking. You know as well as I do that we're all way too good at lying. I need to catch him in the act. You're going to help me plant some bugs in that house."

"Emily, we can't do that! That's illegal." Reid looked taken aback at her statement.

"Emily, come on, you don't want to do that," Morgan said, trying to sound persuasive.

She gave them both a hard look. "If you don't do it, I'm going to do it myself. I mean it."

"God save me from crazy pregnant women," groaned Morgan, cursing himself for not physically restraining her from following Hotch.

"Well? Are you going to do it or will I have to ask the girls for help?" She crossed her arms, a stubborn look on her face.

"Okay, okay!" Morgan could just imagine the chaos that would ensue if JJ and Garcia found out that he hadn't helped Emily out. Ever since they found out she was pregnant, they had been treating her like she was a fragile piece of glass. _Fragile my ass_, he thought, glancing over at his temporarily ex-partner. The man of steel had nothing on her. He turned the key in the ignition. "Just promise me you're not going to do any rash. Emily?" He continued when she didn't answer.

"Fine." She sounded disgruntled.

"Come on now, you don't want to have this baby in prison, do you?" Damn, how he wished he had his rational old partner back. Pregnant, hormonal, I-don't-give-a-damn-about-consequences Emily was scaring the hell out of _him_. Derek Morgan.

"I said fine, didn't I? Now just shut up and drive."

He did.

* * *

><p><em>One week later...<em>

"Emily, I really don't think we should be doing this," said JJ in a concerned voice.

The whole team, excluding Hotch and Rossi, was presently camped out in a dark coloured truck parked diagonally across the street from the house where Hotch had been seen meeting the red-haired woman.

"Yeah, chicky, this is definitely not good for you or the mini Emily you're cooking," said Garcia, looking worriedly at her friend.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. Besides I need to know if Aaron's cheating on me." She didn't add that if he was, she wasn't sure what she would do. How could he do this to her? He was a devoted husband and father. She couldn't believe it, but the evidence had slowly mounted over time. He had tried to act normal the last week, but she had noticed how he had quickly hung up on phone conversations when she had walked in on him, the number of times he had appeared to evade her questions, and most of all the two occasions when he had told her he had work meetings when she knew very well that he didn't. And she had known this because she had unashamedly taken a look at his organiser. That was how she had found out about the meeting with that woman today. Leesa. She could still recall the sharp pain she had felt upon seeing the name written in his left-handed scrawl.

She looked at Derek. "Did you plant the bugs?"

"Yes, as instructed." The look on his face, as well as his tone of voice, was resigned. He hadn't held back in telling her his thoughts about the current 'operation'.

"Aaron should be here anytime now."

Overhead, thunder rumbled menacingly. Even though it was only five, it was almost dark outside, the sky covered with ominously dark clouds. The weather outside suited her mood exactly. She scowled, looking at the time. Hotch was late. He was never late. She leaned forward on the uncomfortable chair, rubbing her back.

"Emily? What's wrong?" JJ frowned at her, worry in her eyes.

"Nothing. Just this damn backache that hasn't gone away all day. I'm so over this pregnancy, it's not funny." She winced as her back protested again, this time sharply.

"Em, are you sure it's a backache? You could be in – "

"It's Hotch!" called out Reid and everyone looked up onto the screen seeing a familiar looking SUV pull into the driveway. At that precise moment, the heavens opened and a torrential downpour of rain fell upon them. They strained their eyes as a figure jumped out of the SUV and rushed to the front door. The door opened and he went in.

"Earphones," directed Morgan.

Emily put her headphones on, pretending not to see the anxious look that JJ and Garcia exchanged. She had to do this, whatever the outcome. She had to know.

They heard the sound of a door closing. What Emily heard next made her heart stop.

Hotch: _Hey baby._

Leesa: _Well, hello Mr. Hotchner._

There was a long pause. Damn him, was he kissing her? Emily felt her chest tighten.

Leesa: _Have I told you how much I love your lips? You are like, the best kisser in the world._

Hotch: _ That's a big call. How many men have you kissed, exactly?_

His voice was teasing. Emily felt a sharp pain travel through her, making her catch her breath. Oh God, he used that exact tone of voice with her. How could he?

Leesa: _Many, many men, in many, many countries. But just so I can confirm that my original statement was correct, kiss me again._

Another long pause. Emily stared blindly at the sound equipment before her. So this was what it felt like when a marriage ended. The pain that had been in her back had now travelled to her stomach. She couldn't think. Her mind was a blank. She was so intent on just trying to breathe that she barely heard the sighs and rustle of clothing coming through her earphones.

Leesa: _S..stop, we shouldn't. Aaron...is..._

"This is bullshit!" roared Morgan, making everyone jump. Emily stared at him in shock as he ripped off his earphones and threw it down. "Emily, let's go. You don't need to listen to any more of this. Let's get you home and then I'm going to come back and kick the shit out of Hotch."

"No." Her voice came out as a whisper. Where had the strong, spine of steel Emily gone? She felt lost, unfocused, like she was in a dream. A really horrible, awful, terribly bad dream.

"Sweetie, come on, let's go," said Garcia softly, touching her arm.

Emily saw the tears in her friend's eyes. She blinked. "I... no. I have to talk to him. Right now." She got up and opened the door, gasping as a gust of wind peppered her with heavy drops of rain.

"Emily!" she heard her friends call out in alarm as she quickly stepped down, surprising herself with her dexterity. In the next moment, Morgan was next to her, covering her with his FBI issue jacket and pulling the hood over her. They walked up the driveway, and she knew without looking behind her that Reid, Garcia and JJ were behind them. She increased her pace, skirting around the SUV, and hurried up the steps.

She lifted her hand to knock but Morgan obviously had other ideas as he lifted his foot and kicked the door open. The team rushed inside and immediately stopped short in their tracks, mouths gaping open, so stunned were they by the scene which greeted them.

**Sorry for the cliffhanger! But I'm posting the final chapter now. Review if you have a moment!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Saturdayslump, thank you so very, very much for betaing for me. You've made this fic better than I could have done on my own.**

Lying on an old couch before them were Sean Hotchner and the redhead, staring at them with varying degrees of shock. There was more than a trace of fear on the woman's face.

"Oh my God!" Pene's shocked voice emanated from behind them.

"What in the hell is the meaning of this?" yelled Sean, standing up and pulling the woman they presumed was Leesa up with him. "Are you guys completely nuts?"

Emily stared at her brother-in-law, stunned. "S..Sean?" What was he doing here? Where was Aaron? More importantly, what did all this mean?

"What the hell are you all doing here?" boomed a loud voice from behind them. Hotch's voice.

The team swung around and Emily blinked at the sight of her husband looking incredulously at his team of profilers. "Have you all gone completely insane?"

"Interesting," muttered Reid. "They are definitely brothers."

"Emily? What's going on? Why are you here?" Hotch stepped up to her, a frown on his brow.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but an intense cramp clenched around her lower stomach like a vise. Hotch caught her when she bent over reflexively at the pain. She clutched his arm, panting.

"Hotch, bring her over to the couch," called out JJ.

Emily felt Hotch lift her and lay her down gently. It felt like an eternity before the contraction slowly lessened in intensity and then faded. She looked up to see Hotch crouching down next to her.

"Sweetheart?" He looked anxious, his jaw tight with tension.

She gave him a tremulous smile. "I'm okay, but I think you better call an ambulance."

"The paramedics are on the way, Em," said JJ softly, over Hotch's shoulder.

"Emily, what are you doing here?" asked Hotch, taking her hand in his.

"Aaron, I'm so sorry. I followed you last week when you came here and then I saw you with Leesa and I thought you were having an affair, so I made Derek bug the house."

Hotch blinked. It was a few seconds before he responded. At any other time she would have reveled in the fact that she had surprised her husband to the extent that he had been struck speechless. "I'm not sure which part I should address first, the fact that you thought I was having an affair or that you forced Morgan to bug this house."

"I'm really sorry, honey, I don't know what came over me. And then tonight when we heard you... I mean, Sean and Leesa." Oh dear, Sean. What must he be thinking? She struggled to sit up, but Hotch stopped her.

"Whoa, take it easy, sweetheart."

"Sean?" She craned her neck, trying to find him.

Suddenly he was next to them. "I'm here, Emily." His blue eyes were gentle.

Each time she saw him, she never failed to marvel at how little he resembled Hotch. As a result she had completely underestimated how alike their voices were. "Sean, I'm so sorry that we barged in like that."

"Hey, you thought Aaron was being unfaithful." He shrugged. "I'd have gone crazy too. Hell, I probably would have shot first and ask questions second. I don't even need pregnancy hormones to blame."

She smiled at him and turned her eyes back to Hotch. "What's going on, honey? What's the big secret?"

He shook his head. "You sure do know how to kill a surprise. You know the house you fell in love with in Southbridge but we just missed out on making the offer?"

Emily nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

"Well, I called up the builder and he told me that he had built an almost exact copy of the house in Cherry Hill, so I swung by to take a look and to my surprise, there was a for sale sign. I put in an offer, never even thinking it would be accepted, but it was. And here we are."

She gaped at him. "Wait a minute. You mean you went and bought a house without telling me?"

"The house is almost a carbon copy of the one you liked, it's only a 20 minute drive to work, there's a great school a few miles away for Jack and a 24 hour convenience store 5 minutes away." He paused, wincing at the look on her face. "Uh yes, I bought a house without telling you."

"I don't even know what to say." She shook her head in disbelief that her always sensible, thinks ahead a million steps partner in life made such a huge decision without telling her. Although, now that she thought about it, she didn't mind all that much. She would have been incredibly stressed if she had had to go through the real estate purchasing process. "You didn't want me to worry about it, did you?"

"No, I knew it would just stress you out. And I wanted it to be a surprise. So...surprise!" He put his hands out in a 'ta-da' sort of motion, giving her a tentative smile.

Emily couldn't help it, she started laughing. Everyone soon joined in, coming over to slap Hotch on the back and congratulating the both of them.

Another contraction immediately wiped the smile off her face and she called out to Hotch in panic.

"It's okay Em, I'm right here with you." His voice was calm, soothing. "Think about that wave. It's building bigger, bigger and bigger...it's cresting...and now it's crashing onto the shore...breathe out, slower, slower still. That's it, you've done it. Well done."

"Wow," she gasped, swallowing. "That was really intense. I didn't think it would be so intense this early on."

"Umm...Emily, I don't think you're in the early stages of labour."

"What? What do you mean?" Emily looked at Reid in panic. What was he talking about? This was what, her fourth or fifth contraction? She had read all the pregnancy books. The baby won't be due for hours yet.

"Those last two contractions were only three minutes apart and lasted a minute. I think you might be almost fully dilated." Reid looked anxiously at her.

"Oh my God," whispered Emily, panic sweeping through her.

"Oh my sweet Lord," cried out Garcia, pressing her hand to her mouth.

"All right, everyone just calm down. Morgan, go to the car and see what we have in terms of towels and blankets. JJ, call 911 and see how close the ambulance is. Reid, go with Morgan, that look on your face is scaring the hell out of Emily. Garcia, would you get Emily a glass of water, please?" He turned back to his wife and took hold of her hands. "Sweetheart, look at me."

She looked into his eyes, the calmness reflected there immediately taking her panic away.

"Everything's going to be fine, okay? I'm going to be right here with you. Even if we don't make it to the hospital, the paramedics aren't far away. We're going to have a beautiful, healthy little girl. So I want you to focus on that, and focus on me. Can you do that?"

"Yes." She breathed out a laugh. "You know, I don't think I put down homebirth as an option on my birth plan. There was hospital and there was hospital."

His smile was gentle. "I loved how you colour-coded the birth plan and tagged all the parts of the baby books I had to read. I can't wait to see how your plan of becoming a sleep-Nazi mommy is going to turn out."

"Don't you worry, that part's non-negotiable. Sleep's a very precious commodity to me, you know? Oh!" Her hands tightened around his as another contraction swept through her. She squeezed her eyes shut, focussing her mind on a mental picture of the wave gathering speed just as they had practised. Each wave was bringing her closer and closer to their baby. She could deal with the contractions because she knew what was at the end of the journey, painful though it was.

When the contraction ended, she looked at Hotch. "I'm a little scared, so you're going to need to distract me. Why have you been meeting Leesa here?"

"From your illegal wiretap, you already know that Leesa's currently in a relationship with Sean." His voice was dry. "Well, she's actually a very successful artist and interior designer. So I asked her to help decorate the nursery. I saw it for the first time last week and it looks incredible. That was supposed to be another surprise, too." He gave her a chagrined smile.

"The nursery? It's all done?" She couldn't believe it. Because they had been house hunting for a while now, they had not bothered to even paint the room they were going to use as the nursery, as they thought it would only be temporary until they found a house. Emily couldn't help feeling guilty, even though she knew that having different coloured walls would make no difference to the baby. "How did she decorate the nursery?"

"She's painted stencils of Pooh and his friends on the wall."

"Oh, Aaron! You are the best husband ever!" She loved Pooh! She felt tears prick her eyes. He really was. She was sorry that he had lost Haley, but she thanked her lucky stars every day that she was given this gift that was her husband. Emily didn't know if it was because he had changed, or if it was because she was who she was, but he never took her for granted. And she had never felt as if she came second to his job. Yes, sometimes his work took priority, so did hers, but on more occasions than she could count, he had put her before his work. And she loved him all the more for it.

The medics finally arrived and after a flurry of activity, confirmed Reid's suspicions. Emily was fully dilated and ready to push. There was no point driving her to the hospital then as both she and the baby were doing fine. It was just as well, because half an hour later, Grace Catherine Hotchner was born, exhibiting to her parents and extended family that she owned a pair of extremely strong and healthy lungs. At her first cry, Hotch's eyes met Emily's, and she felt her own eyes well with tears when she saw the tears run down his face.

A minute later, Grace was placed in her arms, her cries immediately stopping as if she knew where she was. And perhaps she did.

"Oh darling," Emily whispered at the first sight of their daughter. Her face was red and squished and puffy, black curls matted to her head. She was the most beautiful baby Emily had ever seen.

"Hello gorgeous girl, it's your daddy," Hotch said softly, touching her little clenched fist which poked out of the towel the medics had wrapped her in. Her hand immediately grasped his finger and Emily felt another wave of tears in her eyes when she saw the love blazing out of his eyes.

He looked at Emily, swallowing hard. "Thank you for our daughter. I am truly blessed."

She smiled tremulously at him, heart filled with joy. She reached out with her hand and touched his cheek tenderly. "Thank _you_ for your daughter. I'm so happy that I don't even have the words to describe how I feel."

He took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm, his eyes glowing with happiness, a smile etched on his mouth.

Emily looked down at their daughter who was staring up at her with unfocused dark eyes. Bending down, she pressed a tender kiss on the baby's forehead. "So, it's been an evening of surprises, huh?"

Hotch chuckled warmly. "I think your surprise beats mine hands down."

"Yeah, you're probably right." She grinned at him. "But yours was pretty good, too. And when the time comes, I promise to show you my _full _appreciation."

He shook his head in amazement at her. "Mrs. Hotchner, you are the most incredible woman I have ever known. You just gave birth to our baby five minutes ago. I can't even imagine how sore and exhausted you must be feeling. And yet you're already talking about showing your appreciation. I am the luckiest guy in the universe."

She laughed softly, her arm tightening around the baby. Her dark eyes met those of her husband's. "Oh you'd better believe it, Agent Hotchner. You'd better believe it."

**So this was supposed to be a sweet, fluffy story about the birth of their daughter for my friend Michelle, but then this storyline took hold and won't let go, so it became this mish mash of angst and happiness. As a result, it's not something I'm terribly happy with, so Michelle, I promise I will write you another story!** **Please send a review my way, I'd love to hear your thoughts.**


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